INTERVIEW / Reshaping Taiwan's egg sector: Carrefour going all-in on cage-free eggs

By Chao Yen-hsiang, CNA staff reporter

On Dec. 1, Carrefour Taiwan will become the first major retailer in the country to sell only cage-free eggs in all of its outlets in Taipei.

The move will come just weeks after eggs tainted with the pesticide fipronil were again found in Taiwan, renewing food safety concerns in a market still dominated by eggs produced by hens raised in cages or enriched cages.

But Carrefour's transition to cage-free eggs is not a knee-jerk reaction to recent events.

Instead, spearheaded by Marilyn Su (蘇小真), chief executive officer of the Carrefour Foundation, it has been eight years in the making.

In an interview with CNA on Wednesday, Su said the eight-year journey to overhaul Taiwan's egg sector was guided by one belief: "People cannot thrive unless animals are treated well."

Compared with caged systems, where chickens are confined in cramped spaces that allow parasites to spread easily, cage-free hens can move around and clean themselves through dust-bathing, reducing the need for insecticides such as fipronil.

Crisis as turning point

Carrefour's transition can be traced back to 2017, when Taiwan first detected fipronil in eggs and later found that a legal liquid-egg processor had mixed expired eggs into its products, she said.

"That was when we began to look seriously into the egg supply chain," she recalled.

"The food industry is complicated because so many hands are involved. Even for a brand like Carrefour, we were relying on multiple wholesalers without knowing exactly where the eggs originated."

Like most major retailers, Carrefour traditionally sourced its eggs through wholesalers. But Su realized that ensuring egg safety required traceability, which meant working directly with producers.

She began approaching small local farms and encouraged those using standard stacked wire cages, known as battery cages, to convert to cage-free systems.

Su noted that the European Union banned battery cages in 2012, a sign that cage-free production was becoming an international standard, and that Taiwan needed to prepare for the change.

Getting buy-in

Promoting cage-free eggs, Su said, has been about reshaping the industry's production and consumption logic by convincing farmers that the quality and quantity of their hens' output ultimately depend on the animals' health.

She pointed to data from the Environment & Animal Society of Taiwan showing that on traditional farms, only about half of hens lay an egg each day, compared with a 70-80 percent daily lay rate for cage-free hens.

She also set out to convince end users that using cage-free eggs was a good practice.

Su and her team visited hotels, restaurants and cafés -- including the Taipei Marriott and Toasteria -- to introduce the concept, and were able in some cases to get them to switch to cage-free eggs after seeing how they differed from battery cage environments, she said.

Instead of asking them to purchase eggs from Carrefour, she provided a list of suppliers from the Cage-Free Alliance -- a sign that short-term commercial gain was not the project's top priority.

When ideals meet business interests

"If Carrefour only wanted to help itself, the easiest way would be to sell both cage and cage-free eggs," she said. "But real transformation requires the whole country to move together."

That vision is apparent as the retailer plans to eliminate caged eggs from all of its stores nationwide by October 2026, starting with Taipei stores in December.

Carrefour first committed in 2018 to stop selling caged eggs under its private label. In 2024, when cage-free eggs accounted for just 30 percent of its egg revenue, the company expanded in-store promotion and tested stores that sold only cage-free eggs.

Total egg revenue in those stores fell about 30 percent, but Carrefour pressed on.

While some customers assumed cage-free eggs would be pricier, Su said Carrefour has lowered their cost to NT$7-NT$13 each (US$0.22-US$0.41) -- comparable to caged and enriched-cage eggs -- by measures such as buying directly from farmers.

Other measures include helping farmers deal with logistics, not returning eggs to farmers, and squeezing Carrefour's own margins.

With price less of a consideration, Carrefour saw its biggest boost in consumer buy-in when more than 150,000 eggs got recalled over fipronil contamination this month, sending demand for cage-free eggs surging and doubling the company's cage-free egg revenue in November, Su said.

"This pesticide crisis really gave us a push," she said. "It helped many people, including those who were unfamiliar with the issue, to recognize why [converting to the cage-free system] matters."

Beyond animal welfare and food safety, Su also emphasizes taste and quality in promoting cage-free eggs, noting that many local consumers become regular buyers once they try them.

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